Summer job at a customer company

Networking and customer knowledge

Last summer Granlund tried a new way of deepening its customer relationships and thus some of our specialists took a ”summer job” at our customer companies for a day or two. The campaign was related to the Improved Service Experience project run by Heikki Ihasalo. The experiences were positive and both Matti Sinisalo and Heikki Ihasalo recommend that others try a summer job too.

Networking and customer knowledge               

Heikki Ihasalo, senior consultant in building automation, had a summer job at Sponda’s property development unit and he worked with Sustainability Manager Hannamari Koivula. During the day they went through Sponda’s activities and the Sustainability Manager’s main duties. Hannamari believes that the summer job experiment was successful. “It was good to hear another specialist’s views on many sustainability issues. Even though we only had one day, Heikki gave us many good tips and views. We would be happy to take part in a summer job project like this again,” she explains.

Heikki believes that it was useful to actually see what the customer does. “Sponda has taken care of environmental aspects well. They have been taken into consideration in everyone’s scorecard and they are also monitored by the management team. Sponda has, for example, been awarded the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark’s (GRESB) Green Star recognition.

Matti Sinisalo, group manager of the electrical department, had a summer job at Johnson Controls which is responsible for IBM’s data centers in Finland. Over the two days he familiarized himself with the company’s data centers in the Helsinki region. According to Johnson Controls’ Project Manager Mika Luukkonen, the project was very positive in terms of improved collaboration. “It is important that our partners understand the requirements and challenges of certain environments. The summer job project will surely have a positive impact on our collaboration,” he says.      

Mika believes that the experiment improved the understanding of customer expectations and processes and increased the knowledge of the operative environment of property management. Matti agrees with Luukkonen. “It was a good experience, particularly in terms of networking. I had a chance to meet people and learn more about the customer’s projects.”

The positive experiences have encouraged us to continue the project next year. Contact us if you would like to have a Granlund specialist as your summer worker for a couple of days.    

Further information:

Heikki Ihasalo
Senior Consultant, Building Automation
firstname.lastname@granlund.fi

Matti Sinisalo
Group Manager, Electricity
firstname.lastname@granlund.fi